


Monsters Have We Become

by Helholden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ASOS Spoilers, F/M, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that never happened to the Starks in Westeros.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monsters Have We Become

**Author's Note:**

> Features intertwining stories of dark winding paths for the Stark brood, sans one who takes a higher path at the end. Lots of murdering involved. You know, if the Starks ever did that sort of thing.

_i._

 

Jon never asked for this power, but when the doom swallowed up the sky in darkness as the death of winter crept into the world, he raised the gleaming ice blade of his bastard sword from atop the Wall and, with it, raised a call to arms. The men of the Night’s Watch stood up to face the horror of the army coming their way, and the horn . . . the horn . . .

 

Jon was on the ground when the sound filled his ears, a world-eating _boom_ that echoed throughout his very soul and ripped it into a million shreds before he refocused into perfect clarity.

 

Ice struck steel, and he grabbed the Other’s arm to pull the creature toward him. With a warg’s power he forced himself inside the leader, and controlled the entire army of death before him.

 

When Jon brought his army South, history never forgot his name.

 

 

_ii._

 

Sansa was never supposed to be a murderer, but when she held the bloody knife above Littlefinger’s corpse, she remembered the day she watched her father die and how the ruby drops of blood that fell from Ser Ilyn Payne’s sword looked disturbingly much like the ones dropping from her blade.

 

Her thoughts should have been of justice, but she thought only of vengeance, and wondered, _Is this how Arya felt?_ All those years, she never understood her sister, but now she did.

 

Sansa calmly cleaned the blade and put it back on the table.

 

When she reached the docks, a towering man in a hooded cowl awaited her on a small ship. When he walked, he walked with a lame leg. She knew she had to leave, and he would lead her to calmer waters. She looked at him for the first time without fear in her bright blue eyes.

 

When he reached his hand out, she took it.

 

“Pentos,” she said.

 

“Aye,” he rasped.

 

 

_iii._

 

Bran had been such an innocent boy once. All he ever wanted to be when he was little was a knight, to grow up and become famous, win tourneys, and fight battles. He imagined he’d win the favor of some highborn lady, but she’d be an adventurer like him, not some snobby girl who cared only for dresses and pretty things.

 

He never imagined becoming this.

 

His direwolf, bear, and shadowcat feasted on Lord Bolton’s entrails and limbs while the other animals devoured his host. The dining hall would have been splendid under other circumstances, but the grisly attack left the tables covered in black blood, ripped limps, and gushing pink organs.

 

Bran smiled softly at the sight as he remembered what the Boltons had done to his own brother, Robb.

 

 

_iv._

 

Rickon was born wild, one might say. ‘The Wolf’s Blood,’ they called it in the North, and Rickon had been born with nothing else in his veins. With his brother Bran’s abjuration from the seat of Winterfell, it now belonged to Rickon.

 

Having grown up far from home in the wild, Rickon was not soft-hearted. He was a beast at heart, much like his direwolf Shaggydog, and he did not play at mercy. As King in the North, he was not lenient with betrayal. _The North remembers_ , those were the words.

 

The North learned that lesson with the Starks when his brother Bran ended the line of Boltons years ago.

 

“Any treason against the King in the North or the Queen in the South, Daenerys Targaryen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, is punishable by death,” he announced. “What have you to say?”

 

“I have committed no betrayal,” Jaime Lannister answered.

 

“You returned,” Rickon said flatly.

 

Jaime raised his chin. “A crime?”

 

“Your whole life is a crime, Kingslayer,” replied Rickon.

 

When he raised the reforged sword of his father, Rickon wielded the long due justice of his house and beheaded the Kingslayer in the newly blossoming green fields of spring.

 

 

_v._

 

“Hello,” the nameless girl said.

 

His big blue eyes went wide, mouth agape, and the blacksmith dropped his sword into the coals without thinking.

 

“ . . . Arya?”

 

And just like that, the nameless girl had a name again.


End file.
